CarrollBlog

When she was younger she was a model. She had a mediocre career although she slogged on in the business for years. Her one great job ended with a wickedly ironic twist. She had a beautiful figure and one day her agency told her a famous suntan cream manufacturer was casting for a model for their new campaign. This campaign is world famous. The image is iconic because it is always the same-- a tanned statuesque woman with a spectacular body in a bathing suit is posed with her back to us while she looks out over some sun-holiday landscape-- Greece, Morocco, Seychelles... That's all: Goddess figured woman with her back to us, wonderful sunny setting, and beneath the photo is the name of the product. She auditioned for the job and got it. The company paid her a great deal of money because the advertisement would be everywhere-- in magazines, on posters... She was ecstatic. They flew her to Santorini with a famous photographer and a large crew. The resulting pictures were fantastic. Within a short time her image was on display literally all over the world. She proudly placed the pictures in the front of her modeling "book." The book of your best photographs that you bring to all castings to show potential clients your previous work to give them an idea of how you look in different roles and poses. At one of the first castings after the campaign came out, she handed her book to the client. He turned to the first page and saw her suntan cream pictures. He smirked, chuckled, and shook his head. He showed the pictures to his partner sitting next to him who smirked too. She asked what was wrong. The client said she was the third model who'd come in for that job with these same pictures in their book. All three women said they were the model in that campaign. Indignant, she said but I WAS the model-- all you need to do is check with the company. He looked at her dismissively. "Do you really think I'm going to call them and maybe make a fool of myself just so I can find out if that's your *ass* in this picture?" This happened frequently afterwards when she showed her book to casting directors. Few of them believed her because it seemed like every model with a nice body and her color hair in Europe was taking credit for those pictures. Her greatest modeling triumph didn't help her flagging career at all.